A given statement, since it involves many different relations which mutually implicate one another, may be formulated in a number of different ways; and it is needless to say that there is no one scheme of formulating propositions that we are bound to accept to the exclusion of others. Different schemes are useful for different purposes, and several schedules of propositions (for example, equational and existential schedules) will presently be considered in addition to the traditional fourfold schedule. It should be added that a given scheme may profess to cover part only of the field. Thus the traditional schedule (All S is P, etc.) professes to be a scheme for categorical judgments only, and (as traditionally interpreted) for assertoric judgments only.
With reference to the reduction of a statement to a form in which it belongs to a given schedule two points call for notice.
(a) There is danger lest some part of the force of the original statement may be lost.
To a certain extent this is inevitable, especially if the original statement contains suggestion or innuendo in addition to what it definitely affirms; and this must be taken in connexion with what has already been said about the abstract character of logic. If, however, there is any substantial loss of 73 import, the scheme stands condemned so far as it professes to be a complete scheme of formulation. It may, as we have seen, not profess to be a complete scheme, but only to formulate statements falling within a certain category, for example, assertoric statements or categorical statements.
It is to be added that a statement which does not admit of being translated into any one of the simple forms included in a given scheme may still be capable of being expressed by a conjunctive or disjunctive combination of such simple forms. Thus, if the statement Some S is P is made with an emphasis on some, implying not all, then the statement cannot be expressed in any one of the forms of the traditional schedule of propositions, but it is equivalent to Some S is P and some S is not P.
(b) In the reduction of a statement to a form in which it belongs to a given schedule there may be involved what must be admitted to be inference. As, for instance, if statements are given in the ordinary predicative form and have to be expressed in an equational scheme.
It may perhaps be urged that this is legitimate, simply on the ground that one of the postulates of logic is that we be allowed to substitute for any given form of words the technical form (and in an equational system this will be an equation) which is equivalent to it. Have we not, however, in reality a vicious circle if a process which involves inference is to be regarded as a postulate of logic?
The difficulty here raised is a serious one only if we suppose ourselves rigidly limited in logic to a single scheme of formulation; and the solution is to be found in our not confining ourselves to any one scheme, but in our recognising several and investigating the logical relations between them. We can then refuse to regard any substitution of one set of words for another as pre-logical except in so far as it consists of a merely verbal transformation: and our postulate will merely be that we are free to make verbal changes as we please; it will not by itself authorise any change of an inferential character. For a change of this kind, appeal must be made to logical principles.
74 We have then in this section distinguished between three problems any or all of which may be involved in discussions concerning the import of propositions. We have
(1) the discussion of the essential nature of judgments and of the fundamental distinctions between judgments;
(2) the interpretation of propositional forms;
(3) the discussion and comparison of logical schedules or schemes of propositions, drawn up with a view to the expression of judgments in a limited number of propositional forms.
These problems are inter-related and do not admit of being discussed in complete isolation. It is clear, for instance, that the drawing up of a schedule of propositions needs to be supplemented by the exact interpretation of the different forms which it is proposed to recognise; and both in the drawing up of the schedule and in the interpretation we shall be guided and controlled by a consideration of fundamental distinctions between judgments.